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18 April 2011

BREAKING OUT

This year's Line Breaks Festival, featuring a record nine straight evenings of original theater, wrapped up on Saturday night. While I'm still working to catch up on sleep, before I move on to other projects I want to reflect on a few of the many things of which I am proud from this year's event.

1. We upped the ante in terms of venue and technical capabilities. The Overture Center for the Arts, besides being a great place to work - with excellent staff and stellar facilities - has a great reputation locally. We joined an elite group in presenting there, allowed our venue to reflect the talent of our students, and saw our performers rise to the level of the space they commanded. Technically, we were able to do so much more and involve talented professionals in creating the vision of the pieces.

2. We focused on First Wave. In past years we have invited many spectacular guest artists, who did the festival great justice, but this year we had just one (see point number three). We had enough excellent content written and performed by First Wave students to program the entire festival and we wanted most of the focus to be on them. We succeeded, but even more, they succeeded.

3. We presented a professional artist's world premiere. It would be enough if we could just say that, because getting a full-length, fully-produced theatrical performance off the ground for the very first time is a feat. But the piece, The Limp, written and performed by Rafael Casal, is truly exceptional and has such a bright future. It is thoughtful and thought-provoking, honest and raw, and both youthful and wise. The script slayed me when I first read it, and the full production completely exceeded my expectations. The additions of Director Chris Walker's choreography and staging and the Getback Band's (Max Miller-Loran, Chukwudi Hodge, Josh Hari) affecting themes took it to yet another level. I was honored to be able to help produce the piece (including going very method on the set design, pictured) and hope to be a part of its incredible future.

Line Breaks lives on as the art performed in the festival is presented elsewhere and as the conversations begun at the festival continue long after it. And that's why I do it.